Knowledge of the depth of an element is becoming more important in areas such as gaming, three dimensional (3D) scanning and fabrication, augmented reality and robotics, with particular importance in natural users interfaces. Specifically, the ability to reason about the 3D geometry of a scene makes the sensing of whole bodies, hands, and faces more tractable allowing these modalities to be leveraged for high degree-of freedom input.
Previous approaches to obtaining depth information have used a specialized depth camera. While depth cameras are becoming more of a commodity they have yet to surpass the ubiquity of regular two-dimensional (2D) cameras, now found in the majority of mobile devices and desktop workspaces. More widespread adoption of depth cameras is limited by considerations including power, cost and form-factor. So, despite recent advances in miniaturizing depth cameras, the need for custom sensors, high-power illumination, complex electronics and other physical constraints will often limit scenarios of use, particularly when compared to regular cameras. Accordingly, there is a need for a more cost effective way to obtain depth information.
The embodiments described below are not limited to implementations which solve any or all of the disadvantages of known depth sensing systems.